More Video Fun

Mimi's puppet play, 6 minutes of silliness...

For Adrianne

1-The train at the zoo.
2-Yoda talking to a bug and dropping Lightning McQueen out the window
3 & 4. Yoda playing with a paper yo-yo.

A few videos to help pass the time.  We're working on some more... 

Pinewood Derby Time

 Filing down the axles

While preparing the car, Greg would take breaks to study. 

 The night of the race we got there early so that Mimi and Yoda could race their cars.  Mimi got an old car from our Pack leader, painted and sanded it like crazy.  Yoda used Parker's car from last year. 

 One of my favorite parts was watching the boys chase their cars to the finish line.  

 Yoda was pretty tired by the end. 

 This is the on-deck box.  Ready to race...

 All the little kiddos who stayed to watch made a tunnel at the end. 

Fourth Place!  

It was fun that Nana and Grandpa came to see the race.

Enjoy-It-Foods

To stop the children from scarfing down desserts I started calling them Enjoy-It-Foods.  Meaning eat yummy things slowly and appreciate them.  So on Sunday after Parker and Mimi ate their cupcakes slowly, then went off to play Parker noticed that Yoda was eating his cupcake even slower:

Parker:"Yoda is enjoying his cupcake the MOST!"

More of Poetry Month

Greg submitted a poem to a nature blog and they posted it yesterday--Hooray!

Check it out here


He's a super fun poet. It's one the reasons I fell for him 18 years ago.  Yup, 18 years this fall. 

He said there are lots of other poems on this blog that are good too, his favorite is the one about the apple.

Enjoy and Happy Spring!

Princess and Family Portraits

Yoda calls Mimi "Princess".  Totally his idea, and it came out of nowhere.  Greg and I do not call her that, it's all him--so silly.

Mimi is a lot like me when I was little.  Sees the reasons that girls like to play princess, but doesn't quite know how to BE the princess. My point is illustrated by a conversation on the way home from school last week...

Mimi:"I've decided that I'm giving Princesses one more try....When I play princesses with [girls at school] I'm very serious.  I do things like Karate."

__________

Always lots of family portraits going on here.

 Here's one of all of us as butterflies.  Yoda is of course a caterpillar on the far left....

I had each person in the family do a little painting on this canvas and then pulled off the painters tape.  So it's a family portrait of sorts :)

Happy Monday!

Rainy Day

We were inside ALL day!

When I got the camera out to take pictures of how cute Yoda was, I saw what Mimi and Parker were doing and I realized things haven't really changed over the years...

Here's Spring 2005.  Parker is parking vehicles in the vintage toy house.  

And here's Yoda today filling up a similar vintage toy barn with vehicles.  He often uses that same toy house that Parker used, just today it was the barn.  The only real difference is Yoda prefers parking trucks and Parker always preferred trains. 

When I think of Parker this is honestly the first image that comes to mind.  Him laying on the ground, on his left side, rolling trains or cars.  He hasn't done this in years, but today was boring enough I guess.  I flashed back to him doing this for HOURS at a time when he was little.  I thought for sure I had snapped a few photos of him as a toddler doing this, but no!  Bad mommy! 

When I put up Monday's post I neglected to mention how silly it was that Yoda is running out of the shot.  Parker was getting slightly annoyed at this.  We had to remind him that he did the EXACT same thing in the Easter picture when he was 2, here's a sample:

First, Easter 2005 Parker trying to get away...

And Easter 2008, Mimi (also age 2) not very happy about this photo either.  (Ugh, red eye...)

Sping Changes

While in the front yard admiring all the Spring flowers Mimi said:"It has Bizz-azz!"
__________

Way back in 2006 I saved up for Greg to get an iPod nano. That thing has not left his side for a moment (much like Yoda's bunny, only slightly more useful). Music, podcasts, a clock aaaaand that's it. No phone, camera or internet access. While commuting to Boston for years Greg got into lots of podcasts, and while studying (for years) Greg listened to a bunch of music. It has been a part of his day for almost 6 years. And although if he were married to a different woman who would be OK with him buying new tech products the moment they were released (meaning he would love to be an early adopter) he really hasn't complained in all those years about his iPod's limitations. Not a ton of space for all his music and podcasts.

A few months ago he talked about using his birthday money to buy a new iPod with more space for all his stuff. I talked him out of it and he bought a miter saw instead--YES! But in the news lately there are stories of iPods setting on fire, so they are recalling the iPods like Greg's, so he sent it back to Apple yesterday. I was more emotional then Greg, he treated it like taking off a band-aid, very quickly. The good news is he gets a bigger iPod AND the miter saw! Win Win!

I made Greg pose for a photo with his trusted friend. While snapping the photo, Parker jumped in with a laser. (The iPod is already wrapped up in the packing.)

Parker's Poem

Spring brings you lots of things. One of them is rain which grows the grain.

Hoopy Easter

Mimi:"Can you put the glowing on?"

She wanted to watch the cupcakes baking and rising.  

Ready for the hunt.  

Basically Parker and Mimi are too old for this already, but since they asked, we went for it. 

Parker received this bunny for Easter 9 years ago, he didn't mind it, but he didn't really care about it either.  Yoda adopted this guy and doesn't let it out of his sight most of the time. 

Here are the finished cupcakes!

Spring Break

I'm noticing all the Spring Break blog posts that other families are putting up and realizing that ours was a bit of a loss. All I really wanted to do was sit around watching TV and wearing pj's, but I thought my kiddos deserved more then that.  So I tried... a little.

Monday:

A quick hike around a local park.  Yoda was sad to leave and planted himself right there and wouldn't move.  Fortunately he's the kind of child that actually listens and starts running after you when you say, "ok, bye!", unlike Parker and Mimi when they were this age.  They would just give me a look that said:"yeah right, you wouldn't dare, hehe."

Then later that afternoon, after Yoda's nap, we headed to the zoo, we showed up at 4:30, it closes at 5, ugh. 

Tuesday:

The TV said perfect weather so we went to the zoo, again.  We had a great time, met up with daddy for lunch, then got SOAKED by a freak thunderstorm.  They were good sports about it though and they talked all about how great human skin is, that it protects us so well.  (my kiddos are so scientific) 

We even rode the zoo train.

Wednesday:
Since Yoda's nap was all messed up by the zoo on Tuesday, we decided to do the library in the am, and do something fun in the pm.  Haha.  He decided that a LONG nap was in order, he didn't wake up until most of the afternoon was over, ugh.  We played local, but Parker was excited to get new comic books from the teen section of the library.

Thursday:

Dentist, yes, during Spring Break.  I told you our Spring Break was a loss. 

Now it's Friday and guess what we're doing...pj's and TV--yeah!

Baby

Parker:"Who do I look like?"
Me and Greg:"Yourself"
Parker:"Someone at school said I looked like that Justin What's-his-name when my hair is like this."

Mimi has discovered the joy of spinning in circles until she is so dizzy that she has to lay down.  It's quite fun to watch.

After Yoda and I say goodbye to Mimi and the school bus we sit on the porch swing and enjoy the nice weather.  Here he says he would like me to sit next to him:"Next to you!"